More fun at the canal festival

Annoying work emails greeted me this holiday morning. Grrrrr!! I had to attend to them which took a while, preparing for the Reply that needs to be considered carefully.

The Stroud on Water three day festival started at lunchtime, and soon after we walked to it from the centre of town, along the canal towpath to Dudbridge. A tented site had been set up in a school's playing field beside the canal, which was bustling with busy stalls, food, drink and live music, with the feel of a small scale music festival.

Before going onto the site, we joined the throng of people who had all gathered here and were walking in celebration of the re-opening of a three mile stretch of the Stroudwater Canal, which I've been blipping about regularly. But the event was actually a National Waterways Festival, which had brought probably or more thirty canal boats of various shapes and sizes, by road, to be launched via the new slipway into this enclosed short section of navigable water.

The boats were going up and down, or their owners had moored up and were sitting with food and drink, ready to talk to anyone about their exploits. There were at least five small steam-powered craft, all with little coal-fired boilers, their smoky chimneys with tiny crankshafts and pistons carefully oiled, propelling them gently along the canal.

As Helena pointed out, it seemed great that Stroud hasn't gone overboard for the Jubilee celebrations, but people had come out in force to enjoy a local event, which is marking the beginning of the rebirth of this canal and many related activities. She heard one old man, walking slowly along, say 'I never thought I would ever see the canal like this again'.

After walking as far as Ebley Mill, now the District Council main offices, we turned back and I really noticed the outstanding engineering that has been employed to make this all possible. New weirs, locks, banks, overflow ponds, channels and the emptying of the blocked up canal itself. It is far from finished but it is very inspiring and will show people how beneficial to our community this will become.

I bumped into Keith, who I received the Waterways Trust award with last week. He said that he was nearly in tears, when he was walking along in the crowds with all the boats and people enjoying themselves. He was pivotal as Deputy Leader of the Stroud District Council in ensuring the raising of the £15 million it has cost for this first phase of the project. To see it finally being not only built but put to a new use was so rewarding. I know that feeling from other work I've done, but I have hardly been involved with this project.

We bought a sandwich, cider for Helena and Stroud Brewery's Budding ale for me, and nearly sat down to eat. But we ran into our friend Angela, who lives by the canal, with her daughter and grandchildren. They were just starting their turn on the huge bungee jumping stall, and they asked me to take photos for them as they didn't have a camera. I had been taking pictures but I wasn't very focused. So I had a go, under the dark grey clouds and in the humid conditions, and wasn't too pleased with the results.

But Mina, seen here, and her brother Emil seemed to love the jumping up higher and higher, then falling back to the trampoline only to bounce back up again. Helena wanted a go, but the queue was too long, so we sloped off to eat and drink and be merry.